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Al Kahn: "Um...How do I say this without becoming...I think that the um...right now that the trend that I believe is gonna happen and if you look in the next five or six years - is that we're seeing in the Japanese anime companies. They're looking for co-production partners. They're looking for people who help them localize a show in its inception and create something that has a much more global reach coming out of the market. One of the issues that happens in Japan sometimes is that you get a show that has a lot of Japanese culture built into it. And that culture is hard to translate in France, in Italy, in Spain, in Germany. So what we're seeing now, and especially with the anime...animators - TOEI, uh, especially - where we have a number of joint ventures, we're developing new shows. One of them called Chaotic, for instance, which will be coming out worldwide in September. Which is being produced and written in Japan, but the pre and post was done in the U.S., as opposed to the usually when the pre and post is done in Japan they do it the animation , we get it, we do the post. Now we're doing the pre and post, and we're using them to add the sensibility, the spin, the look. But the story arc or the idea is our idea and it's being done in conjunction with other Japanese companies. So I think that's going to be a process. Every Japanese company I know of is looking for joint venture partners to do that. The second part will be, I think...will be complete co-productions where the...even the intellectual propery is co-owned, which is a totally foreign Japanese concept. They don't wanna give you any copyright, yet all the properties we're currently involved with are co-copyright holders. We own them in perpetuity - we won't go through another Pokemon experience - and, y'know, we will end up working more colla...more collaboratively with the Japanese to create something that can spin out for a long time.
My manga comment is...I think manga is a problem. It's a problem because we're in a culture that is not a reading culture. The kids today don't read. They never...they read less today. Every survey...they're watching more television, they're on the Internet more; and that content, although being king, is very disposable. Because the way content gets put out now, it's going to be put out free. More and more content will be available for free. You'll go to the Internet, you'll be able to download as many...we're-we're streaming most of our shows. The reason why we're streaming them: we want kids to watch them as much as they can so they get invested in a concept and go out and buy products. The products ain't free. The content is going to be free. And manga, in my mind, is trying to put a square...um...y'know, a square peg into a round hole in the United States. It will never be a big deal here. For kids that are into the computer, or the Internet generation. They're not going to read. They haven't read, so they're not gonna start now."
